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This was another suggestion by tiamat911. It's an action-platformer with open-ended level selection (like Mega Man) and the ability to upgrade your character with weapon power-ups and a robot suit. In each of the six levels you must find a contact person to give you an ID key which unlocks the boss room. There is a bit of exploration required, as the contact and the boss room are often on different areas of the map, and maps can sprawl for dozens of screens in any given direction.

This was a fun and fairly easy game. With a fully upgraded weapon and the robot suit, you can obliterate most anything as soon as it shows up on screen, and the bosses are fairly straightforward. I appreciated this after the brutal difficulty of Metal Storm.

ActRaiser was an early SNES game famous for combining action platforming with city-building simulation and God game elements. You play as The Master (God), who has been dormant after losing an apocalyptic battle to Tanzra (Satan) and must now restore order to the world by destroying demons and rebuilding cities. In each of the six main areas, you first clear out the initial demon infestation by beating a side-scrolling action stage. Then, you switch to simulation mode and control an angel that helps you guide city-building while fighting off more demons. Finally, you return to action mode to clear out another stage and beat the true area boss.

As many other reviews have said, this game is greater than the sum of its parts. Each mode on its own is simple, but the combination of the two and the way simulation progress affects your HP, MP, extra lives, and skills in the action mode was groundbreaking. The visuals are well-executed although basic at times, especially in the simulation mode, but the music is a standout orchestral score. This is definitely worth a playthrough for fans of 16-bit systems.

The developer, Quintet, would go on to develop five more titles for the SNES, covering a variety of genres but frequently incorporating apocalyptic themes. The only one of those I've completed before is ActRaiser 2, so I look forward to eventually playing the rest as part of my backlog.

ActRaiser was an early SNES game famous for combining action platforming with city-building simulation and God game elements. You play as The Master (God), who has been dormant after losing an apocalyptic battle to Tanzra (Satan) and must now restore order to the world by destroying demons and rebuilding cities. In each of the six main areas, you first clear out the initial demon infestation by beating a side-scrolling action stage. Then, you switch to simulation mode and control an angel that helps you guide city-building while fighting off more demons. Finally, you return to action mode to clear out another stage and beat the true area boss.

As many other reviews have said, this game is greater than the sum of its parts. Each mode on its own is simple, but the combination of the two and the way simulation progress affects your HP, MP, extra lives, and skills in the action mode was groundbreaking. The visuals are well-executed although basic at times, especially in the simulation mode, but the music is a standout orchestral score. This is definitely worth a playthrough for fans of 16-bit systems.

The developer, Quintet, would go on to develop five more titles for the SNES, covering a variety of genres but frequently incorporating apocalyptic themes. The only one of those I've completed before is ActRaiser 2, so I look forward to eventually playing the rest as part of my backlog.

Wow ! Another favorite of mine ! I think I 100%'d the game with max HP and XP at least 5 or 6 times.

I still remember that one time I was missing only a single citizen in the whole game to reach max HP.

Pilotwings is a super challenging game, requiring precision flying and landing of four different aircraft in a variety of conditions. I unashamedly used save states to get through it in a couple of hours, but based on the stats for this game here typical completion times are upwards of 9 hours! That's way too much time to spend trying again and again to stick landings and fly through rings.

The controls are fairly precise, but in later stages you have to fight against the wind and other elements which can cause some frustration. The graphics are fairly basic but effective, as to be expected from an SNES launch title. It achieves pseudo-3D graphics with use of pixel scaling Mode 7 technology, a big selling point of the SNES at the time of its release.

I'm happy I played this to experience a bit of Nintendo history, but I'm also happy to be done with it.

F-Zero is another SNES launch title that utilized Mode 7 to create pseudo-3D environments, this time in a futuristic racing game. The game is a classic and definitely had the wow factor Nintendo needed to help sell systems (aside from Super Mario World), especially compared to the slow-paced and difficult Pilotwings. The game world is colorful, bright, and fast with 15 tracks that each have their own aesthetic and challenges.

Gameplay is tight, with responsive controls and four different vehicles that all handle differently. Opponent AI scales well, and a variety of power-ups and obstacles on the tracks help add flavor to the races. After only playing a race or two here and there over the years, I'm happy to have finally completed it.

There have been quite a few Castlevania games in the backlog, since I hadn't properly played any of them. Super Castlevania IV definitely stands out as a superbly executed entry, which succeeds by making small tweaks to the series' game design instead of massively shaking things up. The biggest change is to controlling Simon himself. The whip has been massively upgraded - Simon can whip in 8 directions, hold the whip out and swing it around, and use it to swing from hooks. Weapon power-ups found in the levels can also enhance the whip from a short leather weapon to a long chain with a spiked metal ball. Simon himself is also much more agile, running faster and able to change directions mid-jump. These make the game faster-paced and more skillful than the NES entries with a more plodding protagonist.

The game is completely linear and takes place over 11 beautifully-realized levels. Konami made good use of the audio and video capabilities of the SNES, and the Gothic theme works well to pull the player in to the world. The difficulty ramps up noticeably toward the end of the game, and the last few platforming sections and boss fights are quite tough. Still, with Simon's arsenal and newfound agility, they're more enjoyable than ever before.

Super Castlevania IV is an outright classic that deserves to be played by all.

This game initially blew me away with its graphics, especially Ripley's fluid animations while running, climbing, and shooting in all directions. However, as I played for longer the true nature of the game revealed itself as a missed opportunity for greatness. The core gameplay of shooting aliens with various weapons and completing missions is solid, but boring level design and a repetitive structure weigh it down. There are no bosses or changes to the formula to break up the monotony, and once you've done all the missions in the final level the game simply ends. It also goes on for much too long, taking 6 to 7 hours when 3 would have been plenty. I don't recommend more than a quick glance at this game to check out the graphics and then put it down.

After recently playing the first two Zelda games on NES, this felt like a huge expansion of the series in every way possible. The story grew to epic proportions and the lore of the world was properly established. The graphics took a flying leap into 16-bit, with vivid colors and fluid animations. The sound design and music is absolutely classic, with themes that are still heard today in various games. Of course, the gameplay is truly legendary, adding dozens of items and enemies, a huge overworld to explore with many secrets, and a ton of dungeons to conquer. This game is an absolute classic and one that I would love to revisit in the future.

Well, this was disappointing. Hyperstone Heist is an exclusive for Sega Genesis that pulls heavily from Turtles in Time, but fails to create the excitement and quality of experience of that game. The character sprites and moves are nearly the same, but the game only includes five levels, with no time travel component to create level diversity. Instead, you'll cruise through basic environments and one uninspired boss gauntlet level before taking on Krang and Super Shredder. It's a decent game, but unfortunately has to be compared to one of the best beat-em-ups of all time.

This second game developed by Quintet shares many of the same themes as ActRaiser, mainly playing as a divine being who fights to restore the world after a cataclysmic event. The game is a simple action RPG with levels, gear, and spells to acquire as you progress through six areas. The gameplay is serviceable, but it's a bit tedious to kill waves of enemies as they spawn from their assigned spots. The mechanic of killing enemies to unlock areas of the map and NPCs in town works well to gate progress without being too obscure. The boss battles were interesting, but there were few of them throughout the game. The graphics and audio are also quite simple, especially knowing what later SNES titles were able to achieve. Quintet really hit in their stride in their final two games, the acclaimed action RPGs Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma, which I'll get to soon.

Streets of Rage (Genesis, 1991)Rating: 7/10

I was originally only going to play the sequel, but I figured these games are so short, why not see the progression? The original Streets of Rage is a decent beat 'em up. The graphics do the job, but the sprites are fairly small and the animations are not that detailed. The music is great - something the series is famous for.

Streets of Rage 2 (Genesis, 1992)Rating: 9/10

The jump in quality with Streets of Rage 2 is simply outstanding. Sprites are huge, detailed and fluidly animated while lively backgrounds paint the scene beautifully. There is a lot more diversity to the enemies, weapons, bosses, and move sets, providing much-needed depth to the gameplay that would go on to influence many other titles. The music is even better, with great house, techno, and new jack swing influences that create a funky time warp to the early 90s. Without a doubt, this is among the best 16-bit beat 'em ups.

Gunstar Heroes (Genesis, 1992)Rating: 9/10

Despite the cartoony art style, Gunstar Heroes is a non-stop adrenaline rush. Nutty amounts of enemies and explosions fill the screen as you run and gun down everything in sight. The gameplay is exceptional and layered, as you can perform melee attacks, throws, a variety of jumps and slides, and even combine different types of weapons for dramatic effects. There are 7 levels with great diversity and tons of bosses, often with several in one level. As an extra touch, the second-to-last level is a horizontally scrolling shoot-em-up which works surprisingly well as a change of pace before the final showdown. I give this one a solid recommendation.

Splatterhouse 3 (Genesis, 1993)Rating: 6/10

This game was highly acclaimed in many best-of-Genesis lists, but I found it completely underwhelming. It's a beat 'em up, but the combat is the worst aspect of it. Random enemies can chop half your health bar in one hit, and move erratically around the screen preventing your lumbering character from getting in range. Worse yet, there's a time limit to the levels which affects the story outcome, and you lose lots of time either chasing enemies around screen or waiting for them to come to you when the screen fixes in place. The game is gruesome in the background and enemy designs, but I didn't encounter much of the famous gore in combat and only found a brick and a baseball bat as weapons during the whole game. Perhaps Splatterhouse 3 was shocking for kids at the time, but I didn't find much here that holds up.

It always make me happy to see someone playing retro games and truly enjoying, not to gain "status". Will follow this topic hoping to know more retro games that did not entered my backlog. Keep playing gold old gems :)

This is a brutally difficult mecha run and gun game. I remember renting it as a young kid and being thrilled to play it based on the box art and manual, as mechs and military sci-fi have always done it for me. Unfortunately I don't think I ever made it past the first level!

Now, with the magic of emulation and save states I can finally brute-force my way through it. It's a beautiful game, with very detailed, dynamic backgrounds and fluid sprites. The music is pretty 90s, but in a strangely pop kind of way which clashes with the futuristic setting but also feels very Japanese. The gameplay is tight, with 360 degrees of attack, different weapons to collect and upgrade, a shield that blocks many attacks, and big open maps with different objectives. Some levels have partial shoot-em-up sections, and other levels take place in space and let you fly around in zero gravity.

As I mentioned before though, this game is super tough. Were I to replay it, I would probably do two things differently. First, focus on upgrades for the default weapon so that it would be maxed out by the end of the game. Second, only fight enemies I have to, and race through the level to take as little damage as possible.

Good luck if you pick up this one! I'd recommend it if you're a fan of the genre or consider yourself a hardcore action gamer.

Really, I envy people that get to beat some retro games. It is purely dedication to master it. Unfortunetly, I don't have the skills or speaking the truth, the patience to lose a lot of times.

To be honest, with these super hard games I don't take the time to master anything. I freely abuse save states until I make it through. For me, it's not worth the time to play them the "natural way." I just want to experience them, get a feel for the game design, story, graphics, and sound, and then move on.

I really enjoy reading your mini reviews/thoughts about these retro games. Also, Streets of Rage 2 is one of my all time favorite games, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

I'm really happy you enjoy reading them! SoR2 was definitely a recent highlight - I loved in the 90s and 00s when fast improvements in tech and game development allowed for such big jumps in quality between sequels. I had only played the Game Gear versions before, which were completely gimped compared to the proper Genesis releases.

Considered by many to be the best Sonic game, the pure platforming and breakneck speed of Sonic 2 still hold up as classic today. Adding in the possibility of split-screen 2 player mode with new character "Tails" (real name Miles Prower... get it?) allowed for simultaneous multiplayer action, and even in single player mode Tails will jump on baddies and help you out. The level designs are superb, and take a different philosophy from Sonic 1 in a few important ways. First, each level is built so that you can complete it in speeds much faster than before. Second, the levels are shorter, but there are far more acts. Each act looks different and beautiful and has been designed around several fun gameplay mechanics, like the pinball sections of Casino Night or the tubes and springs of Metropolis. This means that the game gives you proper, distilled fun at every moment, something that can not be said of most modern games.

Shadowrun (SNES, 1993)Rating: 8/10

Lots of nostalgia with this one. A friend of mine when I was kid was big into RPGs, and his parents owned a video rental store so he always had access to the latest games (the lucky bastard!). I remember being at his house one day and he showed me Shadowrun. I couldn't have been older than 8 or so, and the dark cyberpunk/fantasy aesthetic was like nothing I had ever seen before. I was completely lost by the point-and-click gameplay, but revisiting it as an adult was very rewarding.

I appreciate the uniqueness of this game coming out on a home console in the early 90s. For the most part it's well paced, with "required" grinding only in a few spots and not taking very long, and a story and map that are well-bounded so that you don't ever feel too overwhelmed. The tone reminds me a lot of Planescape: Torment, which didn't come out until several years later, but starting off "dead" in a morgue and real-time, point-and-click combat with party members are shared features of both games. If you play this, don't emulate it on a handheld like I did - there's lots of text which is quite small and will definitely hurt your eyes if you stare at it for too long at a time.

Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master (Genesis, 1993)Rating: 9/10

Here is another example of a Sega Genesis sequel done right. Like its predecessor The Revenge of Shinobi, it's a methodically paced hack-and-slash ninja platformer. This title doesn't change things up much, but refines the concept in many meaningful ways. Your character's moveset is expanded, now with wall jumps, aerial kicks, and dash attacks, letting you move around the map and dispatch enemies like a true ninja master. The levels are also much more interesting and detailed, moving away from boring city and industrial environments and into lush Japanese jungles, a bizarre alien genetics lab, a high-tech flying fortress, and so on. The enemies are also appropriately nutty, like huge robo-samurai, a disgusting alien head, and a mecha Godzilla-like boss. You also have two levels where you ride on horseback and jet-surfboard, further mixing up the gameplay. The developers went all-out crafting this wonderful title, and it was a joy to complete.

This version of Aladdin is often praised over its SNES cousin (which is a different game) since it features fluid animations and graphics truer to the movie. In fact, animators from Disney were hired on to work with the development team in order to make the graphics feel hand-drawn. They succeed in this, although the color palette feels limited compared to other Genesis games. The gameplay consists of platforming around various levels from and inspired by the movie, and presents a decent challenge, but I found myself wishing that Aladdin could do his more acrobatic moves from the SNES version like swinging from poles and climbing up ledges. It's a fun, nostalgic title that's worth checking out if you're a Disney fan.

Castlevania: Bloodlines (Genesis, 1994)Review: 8/10

This has to be one of the best Genesis games I've played (but to be fair, I haven't played very many)! It's a stellar Castlevania game with beautiful graphics on par with Rondo of Blood, challenging but not cheap gameplay, and variety provided by two selectable main characters. The only reason I knocked points off its score is because it's so damn short, taking just over an hour to beat its six stages. There should have definitely been more content here to justify a full-price purchase back in '94, but now with emulation or compilations it's a must-play.

Another great Genesis-only installment of a classic franchise, Hard Corps uses the Contra formula of fast-paced, one-hit-kill run and gun gameplay but turns the intensity up to eleven. Right from the first stage, I was wowed (and a bit distracted) by all the explosions and effects going off as I gunned down enemies rushing in from both sides. Bosses are tough, and there are usually several per stage, something that makes this title more fun for me than Contra III on SNES. You can also play as four different characters, each with their own arsenal, and make decisions at several points on which branch through the story you wish to take. This combines to create lots of possibilities for replay, a good thing since each run through the game only takes an hour or two.

I originally completed this game as a weekend rental in the mid 90s, but chose to revisit it for some reason. The idea of playing as five different versions of Superman sounds fun on paper, but in reality this is a completely average beat 'em up. Each Superman plays identically, and the level and enemy designs are completely uninspired. Expect to fight the same palette swaps of punks and robots in the exact same areas of Metropolis, Coast City, and Engine City over and over again. It's pretty by-the-numbers stuff.

I hadn't originally intended to play TurboGrafx-16 and TurboGrafx-CD games, but I recently discovered that RetroArch on Vita has an emulator that runs them well. Figuring I owed it to myself to experience this more obscure piece of gaming history, I added all of the notable games for that system to my chronological backlog.

Keith Courage in Alpha Zones (TurboGrafx-16, 1989)Rating: 4/10

This was the pack-in game for the TurboGrafx-16 when it launched in North America, and it is one of the worst games I've ever played. It's an action platformer with levels split up into two sections: one where you control a young boy who moves slowly and must farm gold from enemies in order to buy weapons and upgrades, and one where you put on a mecha suit with faster movement, a beam sword, and a projectile attack. The forced farming sections make the game incredibly dull, and the poor control and one-hit deaths can mean you lose lots of time if you make a mistake. The mecha sections are more fun, but the difficulty is quite high and there is very little diversity to the enemies, bosses, and levels. Stay away from this one!

Alien Crush (TurboGrafx-16, 1989)Rating: 6/10

This was another launch title for the system. It's a pinball game with an alien theme that looks heavily inspired by the H.R. Giger art style from the Alien films. It's a decent diversion for an hour or so, but there's not much to keep it engaging. There are two screens on the virtual pinball machine, and you can occasionally pop into one of four different bonus stages, but there's no sense of progression and you basically just play as long as you can to reach a high score.

Other than the recent series of Shadowrun games, this is the first tactical RPG that I've been able to get into. It holds up well, with colorful, detailed graphics, a simple but effective story, and of course, strong tactical gameplay. If you're not familiar with the genre, combat is not simply turn-based like in classic Final Fantasy games. Instead, you also have to move each member of your party around the map, which makes movement, range, and positioning very important. This adds more complexity to the combat, which can be fun but also frustrating at the same time. My biggest criticism of the game is that combat takes too long for my taste, especially later on when there are dozens of characters on the board who must all take a turn. Aside from that, it's a great entry to the genre and a standout among the Sega Genesis library.

This was also a launch title for the TurboGrafx-16. It's a decent action platformer, with good graphics, colorful environments, high difficulty, and tight but simple gameplay. The simplicity is my biggest critique of the game - you can only move, duck, jump, and swing your axe. There are no subweapons or other abilities, but your axe can be powered up with item pickups. It's also quite short, with only six levels, and the sixth level is just the final boss.

Next up are a couple of classic shoot 'em ups, a genre which enjoyed many titles on the TurboGrafx-16. Blazing Lazers is a solid vertical shooter which has you fight through a series of space, desert, and strange organic levels. You can upgrade both your main weapon and your secondary weapon effect, adding some depth to the gameplay. The difficulty was high enough to provide a good challenge without feeling too frustrating. A nice option this game gives you is to adjust the speed of your ship by pressing the Select button, giving you either precision or raw speed depending on the situation.

R-Type (TurboGrafx-16, 1989)Rating: 7/10

R-Type is an all-time classic horizontal shooter, originally released to arcades in 1987. Infamous for its high difficulty, I had a tough time completing it even using save states. The game is notable for making you dodge enemies and environmental obstacles, with there usually being a "right way" to move around the level. You can also upgrade your weapons and secondary attack module, which you can launch off on its own and reattach it to either the front or back of your ship.